


When the Autumn Moon is Bright

by vanillafluffy



Category: Spenser Confidential (2020)
Genre: Alternate Universe - Werewolf, Bad Puns, Gen, Halloween, Halloween Costumes, Puns & Word Play, Shapeshifting, Werewolves
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-10-17
Updated: 2020-10-17
Packaged: 2021-03-08 17:15:07
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,489
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/27060301
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/vanillafluffy/pseuds/vanillafluffy
Summary: The prompt: Spenser gets jumped in an alley and bitten, turns out (werewolves) are a thing. Now he is one.(Let’s just ignore the pandemic for purposes of fiction, shall we?)
Comments: 3
Kudos: 3
Collections: Bite Sized Bits of Fic from 2020





	When the Autumn Moon is Bright

**Author's Note:**

  * For [hugglewolf](https://archiveofourown.org/gifts?recipient=hugglewolf).



The second full moon this month, a rare blue moon, falls on Halloween. Plus it’s a Saturday night, so the streets are still lively when Spenser takes Pearl out for her evening constitutional. Most of the trick-or-treaters have gone home to wallow in their sugar comas, leaving candy wrappers strewn in their wake among the fallen leaves. 

There are grown-up parties going on…during their walk, Spenser and Pearl are greeted by a soundtrack from various houses and apartments, everything from the traditional creepy organ music to the Doors to 80’s hair bands.

A leprechaun walks past them, cell phone to his ear. His side of the conversation is less than magical; somebody named Eugene is slacking on a project they’re both assigned to….

Tinkerbell is sitting on the front stoop of a brownstone, vaping something that smells like cotton candy. “Puppy!” she croons as they approach.

“Her name’s Pearl,” Spenser tells her, pausing. Pearl pauses too, her tail wagging. 

This particular Tinkerbell barely comes up to his chin. Under the street lights, her hair is a fuzzy aureole of light brown. Spenser has an impression of roundness--he’d be willing to bet she doesn’t have a gym membership anywhere--but when she giggles, “Hello, Pearl! Aren’t you a good girl?”, it’s a merry sound. Pearl’s tail wags faster, and she stands blissfully as Tink gives her love and scratches.

They don’t follow the same route every night, but he knows the area. There’s a small park up ahead that Pearl usually likes, but tonight when they get to the entrance, Pearl stops and turns around. “Come on, baby--it’s the park! You like the park.”

Tonight, Pearl wants nothing to do with the park. From experience, Spenser knows she’s more stubborn than he is.

Heading back toward Henry’s place, he retraces their outbound route. As they’re coming up on Tinkerbell’s perch, there’s a commotion. Tinkerbell screams--she’s being attacked!

Spencer has enough presence of mind to secure the loop on his end of Pearl’s leash to a nearby fence-post before running to the rescue.

Tinkerbell has fallen back against the steps. Her attacker looms over her. “Jack, no!” she shrieks.

Jack, whoever he is, isn’t listening. Spenser punches him in the kidney--it’s like slamming his fist against a Buick--and gets back-handed for his trouble. He’s not about to let Pearl’s new pal get hurt, though, so he picks himself up and wades back in.

This guy is huge, he realizes when the guy turns on him. Jesus, he’s even bigger than Hawk, who’s the biggest guy he knows. And he’s wearing some kind of costume--it looks like he’s supposed to be the Wolf-Man, but one side of his mask has lost its hair…it’s shiny, like old scar tissue--

A scuffle ensues. Jack claws and snaps. He barks and growls, and when Tinkerbell slams the front door of the brownstone and locks it, he outright howls.

He’s still howling when Spenser goes to collect Pearl. Hopefully, Tinkerbell is inside calling the police on Lon Chaney Jr.

Meanwhile, Spenser is nursing a banged elbow from when he hit the pavement, some bruised ribs and some small cuts on his left arm…from claws, or fangs? Some people take Halloween way too seriously! 

When he reaches for Pearl’s leash, she whines and backs away from him.

“Baby? What’s wrong?”

Pearl manages to slip out of her collar and tears off down the block towards Henry’s, faster than Spenser thought she could. He grabs the leash, collar still dangling from it, ignoring Jack, who’s prowling back and forth outside Tinkerbell’s door, he hurries after the dog. Yeah, she’s headed toward home, but she could get dog-napped or hit by a car or something bad….

She makes it home before she does; he’s halfway down the block from Henry’s when he sees her bound up the stairs and scratch at the door.

Spenser slows down once he knows she’s safe, trying to catch his breath. There’s life in the old girl yet, but what is up with her?

“What’s the idea of letting her off the leash?” Hawk demands when he walks in.

“I didn’t let her off the leash!” he protests. “She slipped out of her collar and took off!”

“What the hell happened to you?” Henry asks. His landlord is watching _Raging Bull_ for like the thousandth time, but he’s thoughtfully paused it while he studies Spenser.

“Some freak was bothering a girl. I took him on so she could get inside. Where’s Pearl?”

“Hiding behind the couch,” Henry tells him. “You look like you went four rounds with a gorilla!”

“The guy was huge.” He glances at Hawk. “Bigger than you are, and you’re not exactly short.”

“You’d know,” Hawk remarks blandly as Spenser tries to coax Pearl out of her den. 

She’s having none of it. “She’s shivering! I’ve never seen her like this.”

“Here.” Hawk leans over the back of the sofa and covers her with one of his hoodies. “Snug as a bug in a rug.”

Spenser hangs up his jacket, noting the tear on the left sleeve and the way the shoulder has separated from the body. Well, he’s sore, and he’ll be sorer still tomorrow, but what else is new? Just to be safe, because god only knows what kind of germs that Jack character might have, he heads into the bathroom and rinses the cuts liberally with hydrogen peroxide.

He yawns and informs his flatmates that he’s going to head for bed. Hawk will keep an eye on Pearl, he knows, and he’ll probably wake up with her snuggled up in his bed, business as usual.

Sure enough, when Spencer’s eyes open again, Pearl has her front paws on the bed and she’s nuzzling his neck. “That’s my girl,” he mumbles. His voice is raspy, and he’s never been so thirsty in his life. He’s shocked to discover his wrists have been secured to the bed-frame with actual handcuffs covered in red faux fur 

Halloween last night, he recalls. It’s a really stupid prank, no, it’s not triggering him, why the hell would it? Except he’s in his own bed, no one has read him his rights--Pearl hops down and trots out of the room.

A moment later, Hawk fills the doorway.

“What the hell, man?” Spenser winces. “Let me up, will you? I’m thirsty and I need to piss like a racehorse.”

“What’s the last thing you remember?” his roommate wants to know.

“Chasing Pearl for five blocks after she slipped her leash,” he yawns. “Come on, let me up.”

Hawk hesitates. “You need to see something first.” He pulls out his phone, taps a few buttons and turns the screen so Spenser can see it. 

He watches, struck by the unreality of it. _It’s this very room, looking toward his bed from the doorway. He’s tossing and turning, making little noises--whining! And scratching with hands that are oddly misshapen...._

“You need to look into a good mani-pedi,” Hawk tells him, dead-pan. "I was concerned enough to borrow the cuffs from Henry." There's a visual he could do without!

_His face is distorted, as if the bones of his skull have shifted--especially his canine teeth, which look pointier, somehow.. His face is fully bearded, like after a couple weeks in the Hole in jail._

“When did you take that?” he asks, to be sure.

“About forty-five minutes after you went to bed Halloween night.”

“So, last night.”

Hawk shakes his head. “Night before last. You were like that all day yesterday. You came out of it around daybreak. That’s when Pearl came in…until then, she was keeping her distance.”

Spenser shakes his head as he watches the next clip. “I look like the bass player for ZZ Top,” he grumbles.

“You remember any of it?”

“Not a damn thing.” Spenser frowns. “But Pearl should know, right? If I’m the Wild Thing, or whatever that was.”

“Let’s see your arm.” He extends it for Hawk’s inspection. 

“Why is it green?”

“Herbal poultice,” Hawk responds. “I know a gal who runs a botanica, she got me some wolfbane. Yeah, it’s looking better than it did yesterday.”

“Wolfbane? Are you kidding me?” An old Saturday matinee crackles in his memory: _Even a man who is pure in heart and says his prayers by night, may become a wolf when the wolfbane blooms and the autumn moon is bright…._

“No joke. You need to find out who bit you and see if there’s a way to reverse it.”

“I can’t do that til you uncuff me. If there’s any logic to this, I should be okay, at least until moonrise.”

Hawk drops the key on the pillow, and Spenser uses it to free himself. “Okay, great.” He pads toward the bathroom. “I’m gonna get cleaned up and then we can strategize. First of all, we need to find Tinkerbell---”

***


End file.
